Vincent CL Chan – Vistage Chair Profile

Vincent Chan started his sales and marketing career with Equatron Malaysia, an Inchape Group of Companies in OA Business (Office Automation) in 1970. He was instrumental to start Wywy Malaysia in 1980, taking over the Ricoh Distributorship from Equatron with a skeleton staff. As the General Manager, he expanded the business from Ricoh OA to Bell & Howell microfilm system, Pitney Bowes mauling system, Iwatsu, Fujitsu, AT&T Telecommunication, IMB JX computer and Letron Signage System. Later in 1990, he was seconded to Singapore HQ as Marketing Director to expand Wywy Group into Lifestyle Business, creating The Wywy Shop, Wywy WonderSpace Family Entertainment Centre and Chilie Restaurant. The Wywy Group was distributor for Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, NEC, Toshiba, IBM, HP, Sega, Nintendo, Konami and others. The Wywy Group was consistently awarded ‘Best Distributor Award” through the 1990’s.

Sales of Wywy Malaysia grew exponentially from RM3 million in 1980 to over a hundred million in 1990, with staff quadrupling from 28 to more than 120 people in eight branch offices spanning across Malaysia.

Sales of The Wywy Lifestyle Business in Singapore in 1990, virtually started from zero to >S$380 million in 1998. Staff grew from zero to >380 and facilities expanded to some 30+ Wywy Shops, 15 Wywy Family Entertainment Centres and 3 Chillie Restaurants entering various equity Partnering with Singapore Technology in Singapore and Berjaya Corp in Malaysia.

He then left Wywy Singapore in 1998 and returned to Malaysia, joining Ericson Malaysia as VP Consumer for cellular phone sales. In 2001, he returned to Wywy Malaysia as President and CEO with a goal of realigning Wywy Group to the new owner in August 2002.

Moreover, he re-started the Malaysian engine with Ricoh business and expanded into Digital Press business with HP, Kodak, Ricoh, Cron & Blackwood. Wywy Malaysia is an undisputed leader in pre-press to post-press end2end solutions which created a revolutionary impact to the printing industry. Sales then rebounded from approximately RM2 million to more than RM100 million.